[B-Greek] DIKAIOUMENOI in Romans 3:24
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Wed Oct 29 09:37:14 EST 2003
At 8:04 AM -0600 10/29/03, David & Sharon Mills wrote:
>Steven, I appreciate your answer, and I think I understand the passage as
>you do. But, I am troubled because what I read is not how I would expect
>that understanding to be expressed. Let me clarify my question. Why did
>Paul use the participle DIKAIOUMENOI, instead of a finite verb? My English
>mind expects two _finite verbs_ : "There is no difference. For all people
>(whether Jew or Gentile) have sinned ..., and all people (whether Jew or
>Gentile) are justified freely ...." If I try to force my English patterns
>into Greek, I might expect the two finite verbs in a KAI ... KAI ...
>construction ("both / and," or "not only / but also"), or even the first as
>a participle ("For all having sinned ... are justified freely ...") since
>Paul has already established the first point and is now turning to the
>second. So, when I see DIKAIOUMENOI, I am surprised and wonder what point I
>am missing.
I am inclined to think that this may be more a translation problem,namely,
how best to convey the force of the circumstantial participle DIKAIOUMENOI.
Let's get the whole sentence in view:
Rom 3:23 PANTES GAR hHMARTON KAI hUSTEROUNTAI THS DOXHS TOU QEOU 24
DIKAIOUMENOI DWREAN THi AUTOU CARITI DIA THS APOLUTRWSEWS THS EN CRISTWi
IHSOU ... There's a relative clause following, but what's cited does
comprise the entire grammatical core: the subject is PANTES, the compound
predicate is constituted by the two verbs hHMARTON and hUSTEROUNTAI, and
these are followed by the circumstantial participial phrase DIKAIOUMENOI
... EN CRISTWi IHSOU. Circumstantial participles tend to precede the main
verbs if they simply explain time or circumstances governing the action of
those verbs; it's relatively rare that circumstantial participles FOLLOW
the verbs, and when they do, they tend to indicate purpose or result. My
inclination, if I were translating Rom 3:24 literally would be to write,
"and so are made righteous as a gift by his grace ..." You might want to
consult Wallace, GGBB, pp. 636-639.
I still think this is more a translation problem, a problem of expecting
the Greek formulation to follow a pattern more normal to English. For what
it's worth, I still recall my astonishment at discovering that Greek
writers may express the key point of a sentence in a participle rather than
in the finite verb, but it's not all that uncommon.
--
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/
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